A prize-winning Mexican novelist says her country is reconquering territories in the United States with a massive army of uncontrolled emigration.

"The common people – the poor, the dirty, the lice-ridden, the cockroaches – are advancing on the United States, a country that needs to speak Spanish because it has 33.5 million Hispanics who are imposing their culture," said Elena Poniatowska, author of "La Piel del Cielo," a new novel release last month in Caracas, Venezuela.

She was quoted by the Venezuelan Spanish-language newspaper El Imparcial in a story translated by WorldNetDaily.

The writer said the pessimistic vision held by the late Mexican author Octavio Paz that the Mexican is a "loser" is a relic of the past.

"Mexico is recovering the territories yielded to the United States by means of migratory tactics," she said. "Perhaps Octavio Paz could not foresee this phenomenon. But it fills me full of joy, because Hispanics can have an ever-greater influence all the way from Patagonia to Alaska."

She also talked about the boom in Indian rights as a result of the fight maintained for many years by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. She said she doubted the formerly powerful ruling party – Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or PRI – would have allowed the recent Zapatista march from Chiapas to the capital. Last spring, new president, Vicente Fox, authorized the demonstration.

Poniatowska was born in Paris in 1933 of Polish origin. She has lived in Mexico since she was 9 years old. Her novel won the prestigious Alfaguara de Novela 2001 Prize and has been released in 16 Latin American countries.

The novelist added that she valued her experience as a journalist with the daily Excelsior in the 1950s. She has contributed articles to dozens of other Spanish-language newspapers and magazines and lectures widely in Mexico and elsewhere – including Oxford, Cambridge and Paris. She has taught at universities in Texas and Florida as well as at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell and the University of California. She is now affiliated with the political science department at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.